(466 words, 4 minutes to read, a lifetime to ponder, today to implement)

You are in a meeting…yes another one…it’s even a well run meeting…you build on each others ideas…controversial issues are addressed…decisions are made…accountabilities are assigned…action is taken…sign me up…you don’t even have to pinch yourself into reality…

Here is the question:

Did you contribute as a thought leader? Were you an opinion maker…did you have opinions that led the thinking going on? Did you have an angle into the issue that provided insight?

To be an Advantage-Maker is to have an opinion and provide thought leadership. And to be a leader is to provide thought leadership that leads brains…and hearts.

You want change, better be able to convince people of your opinion. To win your people’s hearts and minds you need to provide insight that either they didn’t have before or it confirmed their suspicion but didn’t act on it.

Some opinion making is based upon subject matter expertise. Thought leaders shine. If you are going to follow someone’s advice you want it to be brilliant…you may not get that, but that is what you are after.

So how do you get your management team to follow your opinions without ordering them…they have to make sense to the listener, but to move beyond just a manager into an opinion maker leader you must take a different tact, a different angle into the wind, perhaps a controversial position.

When Barry X Lynn (who wrote the forward to my book, The Advantage-Makers), former CIO of Wells Fargo Bank and CEO of 3Xtera…was first implementing ATM systems, there was a glitch in the system and the newspapers had the issue on front page in San Francisco…give me my money and other such provocative comments.

The CEO called Barry, “maybe we should slow down the project.” Without flinching, Barry said, “We should go faster! There are going to be hiccups, we will try our best to keep them at a minimum, but let’s get this done as soon as we can rather than extend it which will keep it in the papers longer…”

That’s Thought Leadership, an opinion maker that convinced the CEO and his staff to go faster, do it sooner.

We all have opinions…some are more worth listening to and following.

In your meetings be an Opinion Maker…to add real value, develop Big Opinions on the subject, plus them up, and go at it from different angles. Take your initial opinion and push it a bit, expand it, turn it upside down as Barry did. Perhaps, when everyone is thinking Big, think small…what matters is you are actively creating Thought that influences. You want to frame the idea so the brains light up.

You are not there just to manage, you are there for Thought Leadership that guides hearts and minds. If you want people to turn to you for advice, for decisions, for your opinion develop your thought leadership that creates advantages.

And more substantially, we direct ourselves and others to shift time based upon our language.

How are you doing today? Time frame is present

How did it go yesterday? Time frame is past

How will we make our numbers? Time frame future

We shift the question and the time frame.

Where do you think thought leaders brains are located in time?

Past, present, future.

No doubt we can hear them speak about things in the past, how it was, and how it is, but it is predominantly designed to construct the future.

As well it should be. To be an originator, a visionary you have to live at least part of the time in an imagined future. Your brain must anticipate and contemplate a future world. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said, “Great leaders invent the future they want.” So their present is the future.

If you want to have a bigger impact, have a new future you can describe. What will it look like, sound like, be like. Notice the time frame here, what will it …

JFK … we will send a man to the moon and back safely within the next decade.

And if you want an exercise to boost your brain to generate futures, try changing the verb tense and add in the future of the future will be.

For example, this will get us where we want to go and it will generate a new customer base that will lead to engagements that are at the core of what has, is and will be meaningful for us going forward.

Probability thinking is based upon the past and present conditions and accepting the givens as they are, and reacting to the risks and the likelihood of something working out.

Possibility thinking is based upon the future, it lifts you forward, it anticipates things working out without knowing exactly how or the conditions of the present. This is the province of Advantage-Making thought leaders. It is the brains of the Advantage-Maker creating advantages, originating new ways.

You may find yourself nodding or shaking your head today at someone else’s comments. In every business, on every talk show, at every meeting we want to know what the Opinion Leader thinks. In the meeting our brains are consciously or unconsciously waiting to hear what the person with the most status in the room thinks. What does she think? What will he do?

Yes, we have our own opinions, and we follow our own thoughts and make our own decisions but we still want to know the Opinion of certain people…the Thought Leader, the Opinion Maker.

One of two things will happen. We will either agree or disagree.

If we agree, we will feel our own opinion is confirmed, we are on the right track. And this confirmation of our suspicion, as our opinion is confirmed it increases the likelihood that that person will be considered an influencer in our minds.

If we disagree, we may wrestle with their view, making ours stronger or considering theirs to update our own. In either event, our brains value status and they will continue to be someone we consider in our decisions.

There is a third condition, and that is, you hadn’t even considered the topic, the idea, the possibility

This person is providing guidance along a different line of thought and a new opinion is forming in you.

If you are to create advantages, you must be able to persuade people to your opinion, to lead their thinking, at least to engage their mental set.

Thought leadership creates inspired action. Forced leadership produces shut up and do what the boss tells you to do.

And knowing what we know about brains, it must be emotional. Thought Leaders are emotionally engaging, like a comedian, they must move your from where you are to where they want your brain to be. Obviously some comedians are better than others, they are more adept at their craft. Jerry Seinfeld says it takes him 3 months to prepare a 30 minute skit and 6 months for a 5 minute comedic set. Ready for his brilliant insights? He gets you ready.

There is a part of the brain, the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, that identifies conflicts, and context conflicts. This is the basis of risk and reward, and as such, amplifies or mitigates opinions. Comedians trigger the ACC. They know how to do it so we laugh at ourselves, but the really great ones are opinion makers: Think George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby…

If you are to lead opinions you must be prepared for triggering the anterior cingulate cortex, the ACC. In fact, thought leadership is amplified by controversy or contradiction to the prevailing view. You don’t have to be a comedian, but shifting perspectives is required.

Shaping ideas, and shaping the ideas of others triggers the ACC so rather than retreat from conflict the next time you feel yourself nodding your head or shaking your head notice how your brain is responding, not just to the content, but to the process of Opinion Making. It can trigger the brains insights, the leading edge of powerful new advantages you or your colleagues have not considered.

Advantage-Makers brains, are opinion making brains, they get people to listen.

In your cognitive brain (neo-cortex) your ideas are thoughtful(anticipate and make good solutions)…and at times misguided (a narrow perspective reaches the wrong conclusions)

Are you using your brain to your advantage?

You have high stakes challenges, you need to influence your colleagues, you need to create a new strategy, you need to make a decision and get on with it, and balance work with LIFE so to speak.

To do so you need to make targeted neuro-shifts that will support your brainpower. You want your nervous system, the network of interactions, to find ways around the obstacles, When you allow circumstances to dictate your responses, it may be because you aren’t using your brain in strong ways…

Your brain is confident if you

a) don’t get in its way or

b) know how to move out of negative, counterproductive states…

c) shift to advantage-making frameworks…

There may be switching costs to get out of the non-productive neural pathways… but it is less expensive when you know the neuro-shift to make… and it takes a few seconds.

The faster you make the neuro-shift the better…

Your brain likes speed, its economical…

Wasting time repeating what doesn’t work expecting it to be different, is technically – insanity

Neuro-shifts are a quick, small action that can lead to a big gain… it’s a brain-frame that adopt the right angle to gain a winning perspective

When you are up against an obstacle, limitation, constraint, make the quickest neuro-shift you can:

Neuro-Shift the question: The quality of the questions you ask determines the quality of your life…

Neuro-Shift Time: you brain likes things you can do now… good or bad, but now…so do something good now for now or for your future…

The recent release of the movie 42, the story of Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson’s heroic

entrance into a racist all white professional baseball game in 1947 – America’s game, was a stark reminder of

what it’s like when the odds are truly stacked against you – and you prevail.

We’ve known the general outline of the story, Number 42, Jackie Robinson overcame

hatred, ignorance and blatant racism to become a star ball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Jackie became a hero to millions of black children and the hope of their parents. He not

only won the game, he changed the game – a real Advantage-Maker.

But what most of us failed to realize is the scope and depth of insult to his dignity that he endured for the sake

of getting it right, not just for himself, but for the nation. While he was a good and decent man he did not

start out to change a nation, he was a gifted baseball player – his future was the Hall of Fame.

Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers (let it be known right here, that i’m an ardent Yankee fan who

rooted against the Dodgers often) was of equal import to transforming the game and America.

A real Advantage-Maker, he shared the pain, anguish and the delight by his unequalled efforts to integrate the sport of baseball.

One scene between Branch Rickey and Jackie typified the acid test waiting to be dealt with:

Rickey said the opposition and your own teammates will insult you, taunt you, throw insults and spike you. And try to break you, to call you names, and if you fight back they will say you started it, and blame you for anything that they do that’s wrong. What will you do?

Jackie and Branch shifted the odds to their favor in the face of enormous obstacles. They changed the game, They didn’t accept the givens, instead they challenged them. Rickey was righting a wrong and Jackie was influencing the world of hatred into a new world of appreciation for his baseball talents and dignity as a man. His refusal to lower himself to the level of the racist fools drew the adulation of millions of sympathetic good people – who themselves wanted to punch the lights out of the indignant racists.

Everything about Jackie Robinson (and Mrs. Rachel Robinson who stood tall with quiet elegance supporting her husband as a man and in the cause of human rights) and Branch Rickey speaks volumes to the code of the Advantage-Makers. Together they shifted the odds. They demonstrated what it means to literally be in a Different League. Ordinary men, under extraordinary circumstances, performing exceptional feats of courage and skill.

Can you do it? Can you do it?

when its your turn to face the high stakes challenges that matter to you

I know for myself, the Pride of the Yankees would be to root for these dignified men of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

How did they get the Apollo 13 astronauts back safely after the near disaster in space?

Remember the scene: deep space, spacecraft breaking apart, oxygen running out, producing more CO2 than can be handled by the crew. A deadly situation.

And then the Director of Operations Control brings the remaining parts that exist on the space capsule to the engineers on the ground.

This is all they have, nothing else; this is the distance and approximate time they have; make it work… Failure is not an option!

The rocket scientist were extraordinary and brilliant. They worked feverishly to figure out the trajectory, the velocity and arrange the parts to produce a big enough result (magnitude) that reduced the CO2 while they limped home to Mother Earth.

They did it!

Thank goodness.

So are you telling me i have to be a rocket scientist to be an Advantage-Maker?

No.

But, all leadership advantages have 3 factors.

1) Trajectory, what is the direction, and if necessary, course correction.

When my book, The Advantage-makers: how exceptional leaders win by creating opportunities others don’t, was published in 2007, I also announced the FIRST Advantage-Maker of The Year Award: Steve Jobs

He was a transformational pioneer & game changer.

A profound learner who as we know was able to Think Different.

Advantage-Makers interact with the world differently. They shift the odds in their favor in the worst of times and best of times. Their capacity to shift is what distinguishes them. But is it genius and desire in Steve Jobs case, or is it something that we can do in our own lives?

Steve Jobs shifted the world by having us interact differently with his technological toys.

We experience the results of his genius but can we be inspired and encouraged to do it ourselves,

can we, at minimum, approximate and perhaps engage in the same type of thinking that led to the outstanding contribution?

The five shifts of Advantage Makers was evident in Steve Jobs

Shifting the question, time, interactions, perceptions and structures.

Shifting the question – a simple example that changed computers is his questioning the need for a fan in the computer, so computers are quieter, lighter and portable.

Shifting time – as Mayor Bloomberg of New York City said, “Steve Jobs brought the future to the present before most people could even see the horizon …”Shifting interactions – we interact with the world differently because of the computer tools and technology toys he made user friendly for the consumer. With our smart iPhones we interact with everyone. Our iPads enable us to relate to information differently.

Shifting perceptions – masterful at influencing people to Think Differently. He kept everyone looking to the next cool thing Apple would create.

Shifting structure – here he changed the music industry with ITunes, taking a troubled industry and reviving it to an entirely new way to get your music.

His advantages made the complex, simpler; the hard, easier; the slow, faster; took the existing and multiplied the value; and took the mundane and make it engaging. These are advantages we use daily.

He shifted the question by questioning the givens that led to new approaches beyond obstacles

He shifted time by imagining and creating the technological future before most of us saw it

He shifted interactions by changing the game and our relationship with technology

He shifted perception by influencing a generation to think different

He shifted structures to shape behavior by creating entire new markets

Thank you Steve Jobs for your legacy of engaging useable devices that changed the world, and for your inspiring Advantage-Making Leadership.

https://stevenfeinberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/post-generic.jpg230240Steven Feinberg/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/feinberg-final-logo.pngSteven Feinberg2014-06-09 03:19:152016-03-18 03:16:23Fastest way to the Moon